|
<< DOWNLOADS
<< WRITING SKILLS
<< STUDY SKILLS
How to Take Notes
1. In preparation for writing a piece of work, your notes might come from
a number of different sources: course materials, set texts,
secondary reading, interviews, or tutorials and lectures. You might
gather information from radio or television broadcasts, or from
experiments and research projects. The notes could also
include your own ideas, generated as part of the essay
planning process.
2. The notes you gather in preparation for writing will normally provide detailed
evidence to back up any arguments you wish to make. They might also be used as illustrative material. They might include such things as the quotations and page
references you plan to use in an essay. Your ultimate objective in planning will be to produce a one or two page outline of the topics you intend to cover.
3. Be prepared for the fact that you might take many more notes
than you will ever use. This is perfectly normal. At the
note-taking stage you might not be sure exactly what evidence
you will need. In addition, the information-gathering
stage should also be one of digesting and refining your ideas.
4. Don't feel disappointed if you only use a quarter or even a tenth of your materials.
The proportion you finally use might vary from one subject to another, as well as
depending on your own particular writing strategy.
Just because some material is not used,
don't imagine that your efforts have been wasted.
The Good Study Guide deals with reading and note-taking, essay writing, working with numbers, and preparing for exams. It covers learning in groups, talks and lectures, and learning from radio and television. The main features worth recommending are its use of realistic examples and the friendly manner in which it addresses the reader. It engages you by posing questions, highlighting important points, setting short quizzes, and breaking everything up into small chunks.
5. When taking notes from any source, keep in mind that you are
attempting to make a compressed and accurate record of
information, other people's opinions, and possibly your own
observations on the subject in question.
6. Your objective whilst taking the notes is to distinguish the more
important from the less important points being made. Record
the main issues, not the details. You might write
down a few words of the original if you think they may be
used in a quotation.
Keep these extracts as short as possible unless you
will be discussing a longer passage in some detail.
7. Don't try to write down every word of
a lecture - or copy out long extracts from books. One of the
important features of note-taking is that you are making a
digest of the originals, and translating the information into
your own words.
8. Some people take so many notes that they don't know which to use
when it's time to do the writing. They feel
that they are drowning in a sea of information.
9. This problem is usually caused by two common weaknesses in
note-taking technique:
- transcribing too much of the
original
- being unselective in the choice of topics
10. There are two possible solution to this problem:
- Select only those few words of the source material which will be of use.
Avoid being descriptive. Think more, and write less. Be
rigorously selective.
- Keep the project topic or the essay question more clearly in mind. Take notes only on those issues which are directly relevant to the subject in question.
Stylewriter is a software program which offers help with writing skills such as summarising, editing, and proof-reading your work. It also offers a selection of writing styles to choose from - academic writing, journalism, formal prose, and so on. Mistakes and suggestions for improvement are highlighted and made with a single click.
11. Even though the notes you take are only for your own use, they
will be more effective if they are recorded clearly and neatly.
Good layout of the notes will help you to recall and assess the material more
readily. If in doubt use the following general guidelines.
- Before you even start, make a note of your source(s). If this is
a book, an article, or a journal, write the following information
at the head of your notes: Author, title, publisher, publication
date, and edition of book.
- Use loose-leaf A4 paper. This is now the international standard
for almost all printed matter. Don't use small
notepads. You will find it easier to keep track of your notes if
they fit easily alongside your other study materials.
- Write clearly and leave a space between each note. Don't try to
cram as much as possible onto one page. Keeping the items
separate will make them easier to recall. The act of laying out
information in this way will cause you to assess the importance
of each detail.
- Use some system of tabulation (as I am doing in these notes).
This will help to keep the items separate from each other. Even
if the progression of numbers doesn't mean a great deal, it will
help you to keep the items distinct.
- Don't attempt to write continuous prose. Notes should be
abbreviated and compressed. Full grammatical sentences are
not necessary. Use abbreviations, initials,
and shortened forms of commonly used terms.
- Don't string the points together continuously,
one after the other on the page. You will find it very difficult to
untangle these items from each other after some time has
passed.
- Devise a logical and a memorable layout. Use lettering, numbering,
and indentation for sections and for sub-sections. Use
headings and sub-headings. Good layout will help you to absorb
and recall information. Some people use coloured inks and
highlighters to assist this process of identification.
- Use a new page for each set of notes. This will help you to store
and identify them later. Keep topics separate, and have them
clearly titled and labelled to facilitate easy recall.
- Write on one side of the page only. Number these pages. Leave
the blank sides free for possible future additions, and for any
details which may be needed later.
12. What follows is an example of notes taken whilst listening to an Open
University radio broadcast - a half hour lecture by the philosopher and
cultural historian, Isaiah Berlin. It was entitled 'Tolstoy's Views on Art
and Morality', which was part of the third level course in literary
studies A 312 - The Nineteenth Century Novel and its Legacy.
|
Isaiah Berlin - 'Tolstoy on Art and Morality' - 3 Sep 89
1. T's views on A extreme - but he asks important questns which
disturb society
2. 1840s Univ of Kazan debate on purpose of A
T believes there should be simple answers to probs of life
3. Met simple & spontaneous people & soldiers in Caucasus
Crimean Sketches admired by Turgenev & Muscovites but T
didn't fit in milieu
4. Westernizers Vs Slavophiles - T agreed with Ws
but rejects science (Ss romantic conservatives)
5. 2 views of A in mid 19C - A for art's sake/ A for society's sake
6. Pierre (W&P) and Levin (AK) as egs of 'searchers for truth'
7. Natural life (even drunken violence) better than intellectual
8. T's contradiction - to be artist or moralist
9. T's 4 criteria for work of art
- know what you want to say - lucidly and clearly
- subject matter must be of essential interest
- artist must live or imagine concretely his material
- A must know the moral centre of situation
10. T crit of other writers
Shkspre and Goethe - too complex
St Julien (Flaubert) inauthentic
Turgenev and Chekhov guilty of triviality
11. What is Art? Emotion recollected and transmitted to others
[Wordsworth] Not self-expression - Only good should be
transmitted
12. But his own tastes were for high art
Chopin, Beethoven, & Mozart
T Argues he himself corrupted
13. Tried to distinguish between his own art and moral tracts
14. 'Artist cannot help burning like a flame'
15. Couldn't reconcile contradictions in his own beliefs
Died still raging against self and society
|
|
